


Hammer Of The Gods

by lokilickedme



Series: Forgotten Gods [1]
Category: Loki - Fandom, Thor - Fandom, Tom Hiddleston - Fandom
Genre: Dirty Talk, Dirty Thoughts, Explicit Language, F/M, Inspired by Real Events, and it's doggy style, and now they're doing construction work because hey Thor's kinda good with a hammer and all, and you guys are screaming for a threesome, but I'll consider it, but that means quick updates so, eventually there will be sex, except that I love to hear men curse, finally sex, have fun, heavy smut to come later, imagine Loki and Thor having been on Earth for so long that they've forgotten who they are, it's just getting worse, just really profane language for no good reason at all, maybe I'm just projecting onto the crew that's actually working next door to my house, of a particularly smutty variety, or they just don't care anymore, short chapters because that's how it happened, so it's sort of a Real Life AU thing, so much innuendo it's not even funny anymore, so now you get to enjoy them too, they've been a constant source of enjoyment to me for the last several weeks, which I can't guarantee will happen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-02
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2019-05-17 10:01:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 19,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14830179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lokilickedme/pseuds/lokilickedme
Summary: When the former drug den next door went up for auction by the bank, Tate thought it would be a while before she had to worry about neighbors.  And then someone bought the dilapidated old house with the intention of flipping it back onto the market...and then the renovations crew showed up...and then everything sorta went to hell in a nice wicker basket.Two men of dubious origin, a hammer, numerous noisy implements of construction-related mayhem, and one very foul mouthed carpenter later, life's starting to take on some unexpected aspects that a newly divorced mother of two wouldn't have thought acceptable...much less desirable.So much for that.





	1. Day 1

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Goddammit!!"

Crash.

"Goddamn motherfu-"

Laughter interrupted the profane tirade, a deep throated husky sort of guffaw that sounded like it should only be allowed to come from a broad barrel-shaped chest with lungs the size of end of summer melons.  The kind you invited your neighbors over to help you eat because they're just too damn big to avoid filling the fridge with leftovers that no one will ever finish.  She rose up on her tiptoes to get a better look out the top window, craning her neck around so her ears could follow the sound that her eyes couldn't see.

Neither of them were in view.  But she knew there were two of them, maybe three based on the amount of noise they'd been making all morning.  God, she couldn't wait for that house to go on the market, it would mean the renovations were finished and her quiet life could go back to being just that - quiet.

Peaceful.

Unbothered.

But they'd just begun that morning and from the sheer size of the mess they'd already made in the back yard, they were gutting the place.

Great.  This was going to take a while.

_"Geezus fucking shitballs!!"_

More laughter.  Someone was having a bad day and someone else was enjoying the hell out of it.

"Stop laying them on the skinny end, dumbass."

"I'll lay them how-the-fucking-ever I please.  Move your worthless carcass, I'm working here."

She still couldn't see them; maybe the multi-paned windows on the side door would afford a better view.  Scuttling down off the bed where she'd been perched trying to catch a glimpse of the owners of the two voices that had woken her at the crack of dawn, she heard more cursing and made a quick detour into the room across the hallway.

If they'd woken the kids -

Still asleep, snoring softly.  She smiled and closed the window over the crib, sorry to lose the cool morning breeze but hoping to keep the babies asleep a little longer.  As she was sliding the latch at the top of the pane a particularly venomous sounding _Son of a bitch!_  carried through the window to her ears.

And to the ears of the five year old, who popped a sleepy head up from her Guardians Of The Galaxy quilt and blinked in half asleep confusion.

"Who's that?"

"Nobody sweetie, just some guy with a skunk in his mouth working on the house next door.  You can go back to sleep if you want."

The little girl blinked again, still asleep enough to fall right back into slumber as soon as her head hit the pillow.  Which was what she did with a contented sigh, just before the heavy glass window above her own bed slid shut, barely muffling out the harsh "FUCK!!" that blasted through the space between the houses.

 

 

_To be continued..._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Artwork base created by VivianStark exclusively for this story - please don't post anywhere without a credit to the artist and a link back to this fic*


	2. Day 2

 

 

 

 

"Do you guys mind cutting the volume a little bit?  I got young kids over here."

The loud music that had been blasting a disconcerting mix of heavy metal and country suddenly went down a few notches and an absolutely huge, absolutely hairy, absolutely horrifyingly muscled up man of indeterminate age stepped out from behind the new wall that had gone up at some point that morning.  He smiled, and the first thing that entered the woman's mind was  _Viking.  Vikings are renovating the house next door._

"Sorry," he said with a wave and a smirky grin that told her he wasn't really sorry at all.  "Dumbass over here likes it loud."

"I'm not worried about the music, it's the - "

_"GEEZUS FUCK!!  You lazy asshole, you can't use your own damn drill bits?!"_

" - the language."

Blonde.  The Viking was blonde, and impossibly attractive, at least from the distance between the half dismantled porch where he stood and the deck where the woman was angrily shifting from foot to foot, clutching her lime green bathrobe tightly around herself.  It hadn't occurred to her to get dressed before confronting the source of the noise, but now that the Viking's eyes were taking a lazy stroll down the length of her, she was regretting her hasty decision.

"Yeah, sorry."  There it was again, that smirky grin.  Completely insincere.  And completely devastatingly sexy, though without her glasses on she was mostly making an educated guess.  But based on the voice, that gigantic, deep, barrel-chested resonating bass of a voice, he could be a bowl of Alpo from the shoulders up and it wouldn't have mattered.

"Tell your friend to please watch his mouth, if you don't mind."

The Viking nodded, the smirky grin still firmly in place, and she wondered if it was just his resting face and he wasn't really actively smiling at her at all.

 

 

 

_To be continued..._


	3. Day 3

 

 

 

"Stop moving the goddamn plank!!"

"Shut up, god you're a whiny bitch."

"You want a fucking drill bit through your temple?  Because that's how you get a fucking drill bit through your temple."  A heavy crash punctuated the threat with a resounding series of thuds and bangs, indicating something - or a big stack of somethings - had just taken a tumble down a set of stairs.  More cursing added another exclamation point onto the end of it, followed by a frustrated groan that was loud enough to be heard by the heavens it was no doubt directed toward.  "Drill bit through the temple wouldn't hurt you at all though, would it?  Because  _you gotta have something in there_  for it to do any damage, otherwise you just got a goddamn hole in your head."

Deep laughter, moving from the general area of the containing wall toward the open yard - and then she saw him, the big-chested Viking with the rumbling voice and the permasmirk.  By the look on his face he was obviously enjoying his comrade's ire.  Maybe even provoking it, for funsies.

One big hand came up to wave at her.

"Hey neighbor."

She didn't want to wave back.  She'd only come out here to gripe about the noise again, the third day of loud cursing and horrific banging and all manner of power tools ripping through her formerly quiet little life and setting her nerves on edge.  So far she'd only seen one face to put the voices to - the Viking, who was apparently the one without any need to worry about drill bit damage.  The other one, the one with the sailor tongue, hadn't shown himself yet.  He always seemed to be working inside the enclosed deck, the containing wall shielding him from her view but doing absolutely nothing to keep his cranky tirades from carrying over into her world.

She was just a little bit curious what he looked like.  His voice was nice, even though his words were mostly of the Sam Jackson variety.  But despite the foul language he didn't strike her as stupid...her ex husband had always insisted that cursing indicated a low I.Q., but after listening to this unseen person hurl irritated insults at the Viking for the last two days, the only opinion she had formed was that there was a fierce intellect powering that crass tongue.

The Viking was still in the yard, tossing planks toward the deck like they weighed nothing.

"You got anything cold over there?"

She turned back around, halting her ascent up the steps to her house.  She'd decided not to yell at them just yet, even though they'd woken the baby far too early that morning with what sounded like a chainsaw and, of course, the vile mouth of the unseen sailor.

"What?"

"Cold.  You know."  He lifted one huge paw to his mouth, mimicking drinking.  "Water or something.  Utilities are off over here."

"Oh."  She thought about it for a second.  Getting familiar with - or close enough to hand over a water bottle to - the Viking wasn't on her list of to-do's for the day and the smirk was starting to annoy her.  "Yeah, hang on.  Does Captain Curseword want a drink too?"

The Viking laughed, bending over to heft another load of planks and give her a disarming view of the back of his tattered jeans, tugging down low enough to show her that he had grey Hanes briefs on under them.

That wasn't a brainworm that she needed.

 

 

_To be continued..._


	4. Day 4

 

 

 

"You're a dipshit, you know it?"

"Yeah but your mom likes that about me."

"My mom?  Really?  That's all you got?"

"It's all I need.  You get a sugarmama and brains become kinda pointless."

"They're pointless when your personal awareness is centered in your ballsack."

_"HEY!!"_

One blonde Viking head poked out from behind the wall and peered around, breaking into a wide grin when he located the source of the indignant shout.  "Hey neighbor."

She wanted to tell them to shut it, once and for all - but that permasmirk was starting to grow on her.  Her kids, however, needed to be able to use the back yard without being schooled on the basics of golddigging, ballsack awareness, and the physical merits of Foultongue's mother.  "Watch the language today, please," she gritted out through a smile so fake it made her cheeks hurt.  The baby let loose a burst of loud infantbabble and the Viking's grin went wider.

"Cute kid.  Yours?  You babysitting?"

"Mine.  Both of them."

The big blonde waved to the little girl digging in the sand and she waved back with her plastic shovel, strewing sand across the woman's feet.

"You need a bigger sandbox."  He looked around at the messy piles of wood and planks surrounding the half deconstructed deck.  "I got wood here, I can do you a nice big one with the leftovers when we're done."

A snide laugh burst out of the unseen area on the other side of the containing wall and she heard another voice, the one whose owner she hadn't seen yet, muttering _I got_   _wood.  Nice big one.  Dumbass, geezus_.

She ignored the phantom voice and nodded curtly, not wanting to encourage the Viking.  Something about keeping him on the other side of the fence felt like a wise idea.  But she was getting curious about his partner, her mind wandering sneakily toward that containing wall that hid him, coming up with all kinds of fantasies about what he might look like.

Did he curse like that when he was having sex?

The questions bumping around in her head made her cheeks feel hot and she hefted the baby up on her hip to go inside.

"Don't talk to the Viking," she ordered the little girl.

"What's a Viking?" 

The Viking's rumbling laughter followed her into the house as she retreated, both from him and from her unwelcome thoughts.

 

 

_To be continued..._

 

 

 


	5. Day 5

 

 

 

Bang.  Bang.  Bang.  Bang.

Her eyes drifted open, fluttering involuntarily with each bang.

Someone was hammering.

Of course they were...day five of renovations on the house next door and a work crew that consisted of a friendly Viking and a ghost with a dirty mouth, hammering was pretty much a given.  But there was no rude conversation drifting across the space between the two houses, and no cursing.  Just the sound of that hammer, beating out a heavy echoing tempo that made her think of a headboard banging into a wall.

Not a welcome thought.  The baby would be waking up any minute if he wasn't already getting his lungs fired up, ready to turn loose a HI WORLD HOW YA DOIN SOMEBODY WANNA CHANGE MY DIAPER SINCE YOU'RE UP? shriek to wake the neighbors.

Only there were no neighbors to wake, just whoever was doing the bang bang banging over at the house next door.

With a sigh she resigned herself to being up for the day and gave in to the curiosity that had been plaguing her since the work first began, climbing up on the bed to look out the top window.  The lower pane had a heavy frosted cover that allowed sunlight in but afforded no view, a leftover annoyance from her former husband's paranoia about anyone seeing into the bedroom.  She'd have to find a way to peel it off, since it also prevented her from seeing out.

Seeing out suddenly seemed really important.

But for now, the top pane was good enough of a spying spot for doing a little reverse peeping tom.

There had been some progress next door.  The containing wall had come down to reveal a rough-hewn outer wall on what looked like a partially enclosed patio.  The banging was coming from inside it.  A radio was playing heavy rock music and she debated raising the window to yell at them to turn it down, but all in all it was a better option than the cursing and lewd debates that had begun affecting her five-year old's speech.

No, she could live with Motley Whatever blasting through the wall.  It provided a distracting background for the thoughts she needed to push out of her head.

Thoughts that weren't at all welcome.

Thoughts of big blonde Vikings building sandboxes and thick fingers brushing hers - accidentally? - as Gatorade was handed across the top of the fence.  Gatorade that she may or may not have picked up while buying Cocoa Puffs and Gerber Select pureed veggies, since she was already at the grocery store anyway.

Well, no, not so much that...her thoughts were running more along the lines of crudely muttered profanities and what sort of mouth uttered them from that maddeningly out-of-view area on the other side of the newly erected patio wall.  Were the lips those awful words gushed from soft and lush and shaped like the proverbial cupid's bow, all incongruously sweet in comparison to the epithets they spewed?

Or harsh and tight with a dark twist of cruelty that suited the lewd tirades...?

Did he kiss like he cursed?

Did he like to whisper filthy things to his lover as he went down on her, that x-rated mouth sucking and biting and murmuring dirty words to warm wet parts of her...?

She felt her breath catch in her throat.

And then that word - _erected_ \- put a hot flush in her cheeks that made her climb down in a sudden rush of nerves and a disconcerting warmth somewhere south of her bellybutton.

It was a long while before she dared to peek out that window again.

And when she did, it was because she heard whistling coming from the other side of the wall.

And then the _bang bang bang_ started up again, and the baby proceeded to let the world know it was far too early for that shit.

 

 

_To be continued..._

 

 

 


	6. Day 5, Part 2

 

 

 

The baby somehow stayed down long enough for her to drift back to sleep herself, and when she awoke again it was with the disconcerting sensation of having slept too long.  The clock on the bedside table disagreed - it had only been a little more than an hour.

Her first impulse was to climb up on the bed and take a peek next door.

More progress - there was a window there now, in the patio wall.  No glass in it yet, but a wide open square cut into the wall just waiting for the shiny thick pane that was now leaning against the side of the truck in the driveway.

And the banging had resumed.

She moved as far as she could to the right without stepping off the mattress, trying to catch a glimpse of the person swinging the hammer inside that half enclosed space.  No luck, he seemed determined to remain stubbornly out of view, and she was surprised to realize just how intensely frustrating she was finding that.

She'd just have to find a better spot to creep on him from.  But he stepped back just as she was about to move to the other window, and she saw him.  Or part of him at least - the back of his jeans came into view first, then his back and the expanse of his broad shoulders as he stood up straight, lifting something over his head.

He had black hair.  It was long and brushed the tops of his shoulders, matching the dark hair that she could see under the sleeve of his tee shirt as he raised his arms.  His head dropped back as he began hammering above his head and she could finally see a bit of his face, just barely, from the side.

She swallowed hard.

Was this what fallen angels looked like?  She couldn't see enough of his face to make a judgment on his hotness or lack thereof, but something about his jawline and the curve of his cheekbone made her think the rest wouldn't matter even if she could see it.  He had a handful of nails sticking out of his mouth and grabbed one, slamming it expertly into the long wooden plank above him with two hard whacks.

And in that moment, something felt funny in her yoga pants.

 

 

_To be continued..._

 

 

 


	7. Day 6

 

 

 

"Can I plug into you?"

"What?"

He held the end of a long extension cord up in front of his face.  Nothing but bondage scenarios flashed in her head until he motioned toward the covered outlet at the end of the porch.  "Our generator is fritzing."

"Oh - yeah, sure go ahead."

She tried not to watch as he moved past her to the outlet.  Steadfastly resolved not to let her eyes drop to the back of his well worn jeans as he bent over to plug the cord into it.  Failed miserably at not entertaining the myriad of nasty thoughts that instantly filled her skull.

He smiled at her as he stepped off the high end of the porch to head back across the yard.  "Thanks."

The fallen angel with the filthy mouth.  She wondered briefly how much effort it took him to switch off the evil side of his vocabulary long enough to speak those few words to her without letting something vile slip into it.  But she didn't need to hear the words from him, they were spinning dizzily around inside her head as her libido played games with what _had_ actually come out of his mouth.

And the way his mouth looked saying it.

_Can I plug into you?_

A good mouth, strong lips that seemed to have no interest in being either pretty or polite, with straight white teeth behind them that she wished were less perfect.  He was a foul mouthed cretin whose skills in life no doubt limited themselves to power tools and chasing women, there couldn't be anything perfect about him.

Maybe the teeth were perfect, but the smile wasn't.  That smile...it was crooked and suggestive and all the things his nasty words weren't.  Words that were straightforward in their harshness and explicit in their meaning, leaving suggestion out of it entirely.  But not that smile, no, it was definitely full of hinted things and twisty innuendo.  He knew what he was saying.  It wasn't in his words this time, but it was in that smile.

_Can I plug into you?_

He knew the effect those five words would have, and not just on her electric bill.  She didn't believe for one second that he wasn't grinning perversely to himself as he crossed the yard back to the house next door, the broad expanse of his shoulders and the narrow tightness of his hips keeping her eye drawn to him until he vanished into the back.

His boots were worn and scuffed and spattered across the toes with white paint.  And big.  Very big.  And his jeans were loose.  Loose enough to ride down low on his hips, showing the top of his underwear, sagging just slightly in the seat where the curve of his rear tucked into the crease at the top of his thigh as he walked.

_Stop looking._

It made her neck feel hot to remember that she'd touched herself in the shower that morning after seeing his face from her bedroom window.  It had taken forever for him to come fully into view, but in a flurry of kicked-open doors and a bellowing roar of something unintelligible, the Viking had shown up and pulled his attention from the planks he was hammering and brought his profile around far enough to be seen.  There had been a flash of bright blue - or was it green? - as now seen eyes narrowed angrily right before a flood of creative name calling began.

And then she'd seen all of his face.

Wide bright eyes and a dark shadow of whisker growth across cheeks sculpted from stone and chin carved from granite and a nose that had probably been broken at least once, but hadn't suffered too terribly for it.  It was a face both beautiful and fierce and harsh and delicate, dirty with sweat and drywall dust but still flawless in an intensely flawed way that made her thighs feel quivery.  Dark lashes and even darker brows.

Definitely a fallen angel.

She'd gasped out loud at the revelation.

Her neck was hot again.  Some manner of power tool fired up from inside the garage, followed quickly by unmistakable indignation of the loud variety.

"You goddamn toe sucking cunt!"

Rumbling laughter.  The Viking was back.

"Sorry."

"Yeah fuck you're sorry.  Eat me."

"We have power?"

"You're holding a goddamn spinning power saw two inches from my fucking head and you gotta ask if we have power?"

"Where'd you get it?"

"Not from your brain obviously."

The bright orange cord at her feet jiggled and a big blonde head poked out from the garage next door.  An equally big hand came up in a now familiar friendly wave of greeting.

"Hey neighbor."

"Hey."

"Thanks for the juice."

She smiled, wishing for something different now, something other than the _God I hope they're done and gone soon_ that the first few days had brought with it.  As she waved a dismissive you're-welcome back to him and he ducked back into the garage, she plucked the mail out of the mailbox and rushed back into the house.  That tight little backside in those saggy jeans were putting all kinds of impure thoughts into her head.

 _Let it take all summer,_ she thought as the screen door slammed shut behind her.

 

 

_To be continued..._


	8. Day 7

 

 

 

_Rip._

"Goddamn asshole.  Ruin my life.  Who do you think you are!!"

_Riiiiip._

"Think you can tell me what to do with MY OWN LIFE and MY OWN KIDS.  Screw that noise."

_Shhhhriiiiiip._

"I'll look out this goddamn window all I goddamn please thank you very much.  MY window.  MY life."

"You okay neighbor?"

A jolt of surprise sent her tumbling backward, falling messily across the bed with the remnants of the window filter contact paper sticking to her hands and sleep shirt.  And hair.  Yeah, that was gonna be a bitch to undo.  She looked out the newly cleared window at the two faces staring in at her.

One was bright and sunny, blonde and smiling, brilliant blue eyes squinted against the sun - or maybe that was just how he smiled, she couldn't be sure.  As usual, he was laughing.  Apparently Vikings thought everything was funny first thing in the morning.

The other was dark and unsmiling with wide eyes that were currently narrowed, perusing her splayed body as she scrambled clumsily to her feet and began tugging at the sticky contact film.  It wasn't just in her hair, it was IN HER HAIR.

"Oh my god."  Partly humiliation at having drawn their attention with her ridiculous ranting, partly horror at the fact that the sticky side of the paper was grabbing more of her hair every time she moved.  "Oh...oh god this is...embarrassing."

"Peanut butter."  The Viking pointed to his own hair, then back at her.  "Neutralizes the adhesive."

"Okay.  Thank you."  When she looked up again only the Viking was still grinning in at her; his buddy obviously had better things to do than stare in her bedroom window watching her make a fool of herself.  "You can go now, I can do this without supervision."

The Viking winked, some sort of clicking noise coming from his tongue - to put emphasis on it, she supposed.  And then he was gone, and the daily cacophony of curses and name calling from across the fence began for the day as his mere presence in the garage seemed to fire up viletongue's expletive-flinging reflex.

She stood there for a long while, in the middle of her queen mattress with the fitted sheet popping off on three sides to wrap around her feet, contact paper stuck in her hair and a whole lot of frustration in her head.  The ex husband had effectively put a damper on the whole damn day, waking her up at six a.m. to harass her about something or other.  Now that she thought about it she couldn't really even remember much of what he'd said, only the feelings he'd riled up with his words and the tone with which he threw them at her.

That tone had always been what she hated the most about they way he talked to her.

And now she was angry and flustered and irritated.  He'd driven her to use words that had never come out of her mouth before...though admittedly, hearing them nonstop for the past week from the pair next door had made it seem much easier for the vile syllables to form on her tongue.  It had felt kind of good.  Freeing.

"Fuck."

Her cheeks felt hot with the ingrained self-scolding that had always been in her.  _You shouldn't talk like that, it's not proper._

"Yeah, no.  Fuck that.  Fuck it.  Fuck it sideways."  A giggle bubbled up and she realized that it felt oddly exhilarating to say bad words, in a childish sort of getting-away-with-it way.  She yanked at a strip of contact paper and instantly tears sprang to her eyes as it ripped a hank of her hair from her head.

"Geezus fuck!!"

That was one of the fallen angel's favorites, and she wondered strangely if he would mind her using it.  It felt almost sacrilegious, though she didn't know if it was from the terminology itself or the fact that she'd borrowed it without asking.

Could people own words?

Well, the window was clear now, her bedroom no longer a sealed-off prison.  That felt good too, if only for the fact that it had been _him_ that put the film up to begin with.  She'd never wanted it, had fussed about the way it looked, had bemoaned the loss of the morning sunshine and the view of the bushes that bloomed in the Spring.

Bushes that she could see unhindered now, without having to climb up on the bed to look out the top pane.

As well as anything else that happened to be out there.

An overwhelming need to press her nose to the glass and see what the two males were doing now surged through her and she resisted it - mostly because the Viking would no doubt be glancing over now that the film was off and he could see in.

But if he could see in, so could the other one...

The fallen angel with the filthy mouth.  She felt like she should knock on the window to get his attention, maybe push the pane up and thank him for teaching her how to say _geezus fuck_ because dear god that was satisfying...but the childproof lock was still installed at the top and she didn't know how to take it off.  Time to Google that shit and get it gone.  A breeze through the bedroom would be nice.

Among other things.

 

 

_To be continued..._

 


	9. Day 7.5 - Afternoon

 

Prince.

Not the royal kind - the Minneapolis kind, and louder than the table saw that was buzzing at a decibel that made her ears ring.  Viletongue was obviously the one operating it since she could see the Viking up on the roof, doing a sort of half clumsy exotic dance while he pulled off the occasional broken shingle and dropped it into a pile.  And he'd spotted her, one big paw shooting up to wave cheerfully at her as he mimicked His Purple Highness's high pitched falsetto, those big hands sliding up his stomach and dragging his sweat drenched tee shirt up with it in a Hot Men Of Construction calendar sort of way.

He was obviously Mister June.

And he proved it by tugging that shirt off over his head and tossing it down to her, the damp pale blue cotton falling like a stone under the weight of all that sweat to land with a _thunk_ on the top of the chain link fence between them.

"Hey again neighbor.  Get the glue out of your hair?"

She nodded up at him, squinting at the bright afternoon sunlight filtering in from behind his big body.  He blocked out half the sun.  If the dark one was a fallen angel, maybe this one was a god of some kind?  Like a parole officer, keeping an eye on an errant charge.  Or in this case, a demi-deity who'd managed to get himself tossed out of heaven, probably for cursing.

"Please keep your pants on, my kids are coming outside to play."

"Roger that."

The back door slammed and the little girl came stumbling toward her, her baby brother hanging lopsided in her arms and about to start squalling.  "Mom he was pulling stuff out of the cabinet under the stove!"

The woman gave the infant a mock scolding look as she scooped him up.  The halfhearted tongue lashing she was about to administer was interrupted by the sudden halting of the noise from inside the garage, followed by a shout that seemed to be moving toward the front exit.

"Gonna go have a smoke, dickhead."

"Your lungs are gonna be as black as your heart you keep inhaling that shit."

"They'll never be as black as your dick after last weekend."

_"Guys!  Language!"_

The little girl looked up at the Viking on the roof, shielding her eyes from the sun.  She broke into a wide smile when he waved to her.

"Look mom, it's the Viking.  It looks like he brought the sun with him."

The woman sighed, knowing the Ex would be hearing a whole slew of new words from their five year old and would without a doubt demand to know where she'd learned them.

_Oh, just a god and a fallen angel.  Best just get used to it, apparently they're going to be here all summer._

"You need a kid lock on that cabinet," the Viking said down to her from the edge of the roof, crouching with the toes of his boots hanging off the guttering.  "I can take care of that for ya."

The woman nodded, not even close to listening.  Her peripheral vision had caught a glimpse of Viletongue leaving the garage, the back of his dark head visible for just a second before he crossed the driveway to head for the open front yard.

She tried to remember if she'd checked the mail yet, and hoped perversely that she hadn't.

 

 

She was setting the childrens' weekend bags on the front porch when movement caught her attention from the corner of her eye.  The fallen angel was leaning against the big maple in the neighboring front yard, lighting up a cigarette.  There was a small pile of smoked nubs on the ground at his feet already.  She didn't know what drove her to do it, but without thinking much about it she hefted the baby up and headed toward him.

He watched her approach, his eyes doing a slow up and down over his cigarette until she stopped in front of him.

His stare fell to the infant on her hip.  He didn't seem interested in him one way or the other, his gaze simply acknowledged that he was there.

"So this is why all the golly-gee."

"What?"

"Magic Mike up there.  Keeps tellin' me I gotta dial back on the adjectives."  He nodded toward the baby as he re-lit his cigarette and blew a lungful of smoke to one side.  "Didn't figure you were all that averse to it yourself."

"And why would you assume I wasn't?"

His eyes narrowed and he leaned toward her, just slightly.  "You look like you'd fuck a demon if it smiled at you right."

The shiver that hit her spine wasn't fair.  Wasn't fair at all.

"I'm not much of an expletive user, to be honest."

"Piety or lack of motivation?"

"Piety, I guess."

"I think you got it down just fine."  He flicked his cigarette away and glanced toward the house behind her.  "Good use of geezus fuck this morning.  Could work on the delivery though, I wasn't totally convinced."

"What?"

He nodded toward the now-clear window.

"You heard that?"

"Honey I can hear everything that comes from that bedroom."

"How do you know that's my bedroom?"

"I saw you standing on the bed.  Those are usually found in bedrooms."

"Oh."

A dark red SUV pulled up in her driveway and a regrettably familiar man got out quickly, coming around the front of the vehicle to glare in their direction.  The flinch that tensed her entire body didn't escape the angel's notice and he narrowed his eyes again, though this time there was something whispering of murder and mayhem in it.  The woman smiled nervously.  "That's my ex, he's picking up the kids."

Fallen Angel cocked his head to one side, raising two fingers to give the man a curt wave.  The Ex nodded just as curtly and stopped at the front of the car like he was waiting, an air of annoyed impatience fairly rolling off him in aggressive waves.

"Come on baby," the woman said to the babbling infant on her hip.  "Your dad's here."

 

 

_To be continued..._

 

 


	10. Day 7, Part 3 - Later that afternoon

 

 

 

"Stay away from that guy, he looks like a criminal."

"I dunno, he seems okay.  The other one is nice - "

"Stay away from them.  Keep the kids away from them.  I mean it."  The threatening tone in his voice carried well past her own ears and she glanced over her shoulder.  The angel was still standing there, his back against the broad trunk of the tree, smoking and minding his own business as her Ex made a judgment call on his character based solely on his rough looks and the fact that he believed everyone in the construction trade had a criminal record.  It hadn't helped that he'd seen her talking to him.

Judgmental son of a bitch, he'd always been like that.  He hated the tolerance and kindness in her nature that always had her looking past what was on the outside.  That thing inside her that made her roll down her window and hand juice boxes from the baby's diaper bag and half-eaten KitKats and coffee change to panhandlers while he locked the doors and complained that they should be getting jobs instead of harassing good hard working people out of money they earned.  That thing that he called _head in the sand pie in the sky._

And she hated the fact that some of his cynical bullshit had rubbed off on her after years of being exposed to it.  She hadn't much cared for the construction guys when they'd first started, although that wasn't due to any particular lack of charitable thinking on her part.  It was more a direct result of Viletongue's brutal vocabulary and the Viking's cheerful willingness to breach the fence barrier a little too frequently.

But none of that was particularly condemning, was it.

Maybe the angel and the Viking had criminal records.  So?  They were doing honest work now, weren't they?  Instead of making her wary of them, his assumption made her want to like them.  Give them the benefit of the doubt.  Assume that they were skilled craftsmen who chose this line of work because they loved it and were good at it, not because they were on work release and it was the only job that would have them.

Maybe a trip to the store for some more Gatorade was in order.  They always looked half overheated.  And wouldn't the Ex just have an embolism if he knew she was doing that.

"Be good, babies."  She kissed each of the kids, checked their seatbelts one last time.  Weekends were always long and lonely while they were at their father's, but at least it was the only time she had to deal with him in person.  "See you on Sunday, byyyyyyyyyye!  Bye bye bye!!"

Exaggerated air kisses as they pulled out of the driveway.  Big goodbye waves and more cartoon kisses, blown with great gusto to cover the distance between them.  She glanced over at the angel as the car passed where he was standing.  He was giving the Ex that curt little two-fingered wave again - but as the SUV rounded the curve at the end of the street, he dropped one of the fingers.  A giggle was bubbling up in her throat until she watched him reach down to adjust himself in the general direction the car had gone, the simple gesture taking on so much more meaning than simply an act of making oneself more comfortable.

The blast of heat she felt was just as unfair as the shiver in her spine had been earlier.

No damn fair at all.

She was halfway across the yard before she even realized she was moving toward him.  His head came around and he met eyes with her, and she knew nothing with him was ever going to be fair.  He had far too big of an advantage.

Because she knew now what type of man flipped her switches.

And he was flipping every last one of them.

 

 

"There's...a lock, thing, on that window that I can't get off.  I'd really like to...you know...get it off."

A blast of laughter erupted from up on the roof and the angel rolled his eyes.  "Fucking five year old."  He had put his thick leather carpentry gloves back on and she caught herself staring at them as she followed him to the garage.  He stopped and turned toward her, those gloved hands coming to his hips as he cocked one knee up to rest his boot on a sawhorse.  "And?"

"And I was wondering if...you know...you know how to do it."

"OH MY GOD!!!"

Quicker than her attention could track, he grabbed a chunk of sawed-off two by four and stepped back out into the driveway, hurling it at the Viking on top of the house.  "Shut up scrotum!"

There was a thud and a curse, and then his eyes came back to her and there was something like suggestive amusement in them.  "Shouldn't I know your name before I let you take me into your bedroom?"

"Um...okay."

He waited, finally putting his hands out in a _Annnnd?_   _I'm waiting_  gesture that she found irritating, but made her put her chin up anyway.

"Tate."

"Tate huh?"  He seemed to be thinking about it, his face a mask of contemplation, that cruelly beautiful mouth twisted around an unlit cigarette that bobbed at the corner of his lips as he talked.  "What the hell kind of name is Tate?"

"I don't know...just a name, I guess."  She stared him down, but it was uncomfortable and he wouldn't look away.  "What's _your_ name?"

The Viking poked his head into the garage from the new patio doorway.  "Hey can I call you Tater?"

"Get your ass in here and fix the damn generator you useless undescended testicle."

"Tater Tot.  God I love tater tots.  The ones from Sonic are the best."  He grinned, that big sunshiny smile that was growing on her.  "It's a good name for you."

The angel's eyes gave her body a completely unrepentant roam, top to bottom, bringing back that unfair shiver from earlier.  "You don't look like a Tate...whatever a Tate looks like."

"Yeah?  What do I look like then?"

"Lunch!  A number seven with large tater tots and a creamsicle shake."  The euphoric look on the Viking's face made it clear he was thinking strictly of the Sonic menu as he kicked the generator in the corner.  The annoyed shake of the angel's head said without a doubt _dipshit,_ but his eyes falling to the front of her shirt said something else entirely.

"Lunch," he said quietly.

 

 

_To be continued..._

 

 


	11. Day 8

 

 

_BAM.  BAM BAM BAM._

The door sounded like it was about to come off its hinges.  She yanked it open, ready to throw a glare at whoever was on the porch.  She hoped it wasn't a religious type, she wasn't in the mood to end up on one of their Do Not Call lists for rudeness and sometimes the random biblical discussions were a welcome distraction.  She couldn't even bring herself to throw away their pamphlets.

"What?!"

Definitely not a religious type.  The fallen angel was standing there, holding the screen door open with one hand.  The other was poised to beat a dent in the jamb again and she stared at him with wide eyes as he flashed her a completely insincere smile and lowered his fist.

"There's a doorbell, you know.  You don't have to break the front of my house."

His eyes went past her, doing a quick sweep of the living room and then coming back to focus on some nondescript point of her anatomy between collarbone and rib cage.

"I'm not the ding dong type."

"I'm sure you're not.  So what type are you that brings you to my porch?"

"The bedroom window type."  He nodded to the east side of the house.  "You've got a safety latch you wanted to get off."

She paused.  Actually paused, waiting to hear the Viking's rumbling laughter as the cymbal crash to punctuate the innuendo.  When it didn't come, she looked past him into the yard.  "Oh.  Yeah...that's right.  Is the..."  She realized she didn't know the Viking's name and felt stupid saying _The Viking,_ so she motioned toward the house next door instead.  "The guy, your buddy, is he coming over?"

Fallen Angel's eyes were boring into her with a directness that made her neck feel hot.

"No."  He pulled his thick leather gloves off and shoved them into the back pocket of his jeans and she realized how dark his hair was.  Completely unrelated to anything, just... _his hair is so dark._ Like midnight without stars.  It fell over his shoulder, not quite reaching to his pec.  Her head latched inexplicably onto the fact that it curled up just a tiny bit on the ends and looked soft and thick.

Pure black.

_Stop..._

"Bedroom stuff's a one man job."

"Hm?"

She felt sure there was an eyeroll as he moved past her, blowing off her blank look and skipping over the obvious lack of comprehension that seemed to knock IQ points off her total every time she got near him.

"Well lets go get it off then."  He stopped at the mouth of the hallway and turned back to her.  "You gonna show me the way or am I going alone?  _Tate."_

Her name, coming off that tongue, passing through those lips, made her shiver.  What was it he'd said?  _If I'm going to let you take me into your bedroom shouldn't I know your name first?_

Or something like that.  Her head wasn't doing a lot of coherent recall.  But he knew her name now.

And her bedroom was at the end of the hall.

His eyes were burning into her with the physical embodiment of hostile snark and thinly veiled sexual aggression and it was all making her knees feel shaky.

But that lock wasn't gonna get itself off...and neither was she.

Dear god had she really just said that inside her head?  Surely not.  Yeah, yeah she definitely did.  She waited a tick for the Viking's burst of delighted laughter and realized he couldn't hear her thoughts, at least not from all the way over at the other house - and for sure not while the radio was cranked up and he was running the table saw.

Thank god for the noise, for once.

The angel's hand brushed against hers lightly as she moved past him, just a barely-there touch of his forefinger across the back of her knuckles as she passed.

"Come with me."

 

 

_To be continued..._

 

 

 


	12. Day 8, Part 2

 

 

"This one."

She stepped aside to let him go in first, not really sure why but thinking it couldn't be a bad idea to keep him in full sight.  Or maybe she just wanted to watch a man casually stroll into her bedroom with potentially unseemly purpose for the first time in however long it had been.

Possibly she simply wanted to get another glimpse of his backside in those slightly too-loose jeans.

Nothing was clear in her head, not her intentions nor his, nothing beyond the original mission - getting that latch off the window - but when he walked into the room and his eyes fell to the neatly made bed while hers drifted down to the seat of his Levis, one thing shifted into perfect clarity.

The heat in his stare when he turned back to her.

"This the only window he put a lock on?"

"Hm?  Oh, yeah."

The angel's eyes went to the doorway across the hall, to the sky blue door decorated with stars and planets and, inexplicably, a crayon drawing of a Wampa.

"No locks on the kids' windows?"

"No, why?"

Something about the way his glare darkened made her feel uncomfortably warm.  It was then that she put it together in her head, and it was also then that she was embarrassed to realize he had sorted the details long before she had.

The heat in his stare wasn't about lust.  He was angry.

"Fuckin' dumbass, he think you were Rapunzel or something?"

She stared dumbly at him.

 _Geezus fuck._ He'd spoken to her all of three times and been in her house exactly once and he already had it figured out.  He went to the window and gave the lock a cursory glance, then sat down on the edge of the bed and started unlacing his boots.

"What are you doing?"

"I gotta stand on the bed, you want these all over your pristine white Egyptian cotton?"  He held up one dirty work boot, dropping it noisily to the hardwood floor.  She noticed his socks were clean.  Of course they were, he hadn't really started his workday yet.

"Thank you."

He laughed, a short little huff as the other boot dropped.  And then he was on her bed, kicking her pillows out of the way and tugging back the sheer curtains.

"You like white don't you."

She didn't respond.  The answer was seemingly obvious in her white sheets, white quilted duvet, the white curtains and the white walls.  Dear god, she didn't even really like white that much.  When had she become this boring?  She knew she had a personality, once upon a time...the thought hit her head briefly that if she'd been single she would have painted this room dark purple.

_So much white..._

She stared at his back, watching his hand reach down to tug a screwdriver from the rear pocket of his jeans.  There was a narrow strip of bare skin showing above the beltloops.  He was tan all the way down to the just barely visible waistband of his underwear and it was all she could do to not reach out and run a fingertip across that little runway of flesh.

"Dumbass painted over it."

Chips of white began to fly as he hacked at the lock with the screwdriver, loosening the painted-down edges.  And then two screws dropped to the inner ledge and with a grinding sort of creak the latch popped off.

He turned around and held it out to her.

"You're free, Rapunzel."

She stared at it for a second, way longer than she intended to.  So much meaning in that disconnected piece of metal.  And while she stared at it, he stared at her, unblinking, flakes of white paint scattered through his dark hair like snowflakes.

And then that perfect clarity from earlier established itself again in a series of small events. 

Confusion when his hand reached out and grabbed hold of hers.

The rush of panicked exhilaration when he pulled her up onto the bed with him.

The smell of his skin when she suddenly found herself close enough to press her nose into the front of his shirt.

The cool smooth feel of the glass as he put her hand on the sill and laid his over it, the two of them sliding the window up together.

"There ya go.  Now you can listen to dipshit singing all day if the mood strikes you."

She swayed slightly, the mattress sinking unevenly under his heavier weight, tilting her toward him.  Her other hand came up and she grabbed him without thinking, her fingers going to that exposed bit of his back that her eyes had found so delicious.

He didn't reach out to steady her.  Instead, he stepped down off the bed.  Turned around and looked at her for a second that stretched into something close to a cliched eternity.  And then he extended his arms and took her by the waist, lifting her down to the floor.

"Three...two..."

She stared up at him in confusion.  And then another one of those free-flowing moments of clarity hit her just as the Viking's big cheerful blonde head appeared outside the now-open window.

"Hey neighbor!  Oh wow that's a lot of white.  I could redo all that for ya when we're done over here, we got a shitload of paint."

The angel didn't move, didn't take his stare off of her, and the Viking didn't seem to notice they were standing close enough to breathe one another's oxygen.  He just smiled and crossed his arms on the windowsill, offering color suggestions as Tate suddenly felt the need to move to the other side of the bedroom.  Her phone, that was it.  She needed to check for texts from the five year old, the little girl loved to send her pictures of herself and her little brother while they were at their dad's place.

And she needed an excuse to put some space between herself and the angel.  Find some air to inhale that hadn't already been inside his lungs.  Establish some personal space that didn't smell like his skin or the leather of his work gloves.

The sight of the rumpled duvet where they'd been standing made her chest tighten up.

And then the Viking was no longer at the window, his cheerful whistling fading to a distant hum as he went back into the enclosed garage and fired up the generator. 

_"You need to get undressed."_

The clarity was back again.  Those five words were pretty damn clear.  So was the urgency in the angel's voice, and the lack of any reluctance at all on her part to do entirely as she was told.

 

 

_To be continued..._

 


	13. Day 8, Part 3

 

 

Her head completely blanked as he guided her backward across her bedroom, not a single thought forming anywhere near her brain until the backs of her calves bumped the edge of the mattress.  He was already pulling his shirt off over his head and dropping it to the floor, his hands going to his belt and tugging his jeans open before she even realized he had unbuckled it.

"You've got too many clothes on," he reminded her.  "Won't do you any good to spread your legs if they're still in your pants."

The shiver that his words sent through her body was as merciless as the demanding tone in his voice - but with one thing that set it apart from the shiver the Ex's tone used to invoke.  The difference being that she didn't mind the order she'd just been given.  Not that it was much of an order, really...more of a firm suggestion, its seriousness driven home not by a threat of negative action if she disobeyed, but by the very real fact that she was about to be highly overdressed for the occasion.  The angel had already mostly disrobed.

And he was staring at her, his expression indicating that she had a very limited amount of time before he assumed she was incapable of undressing herself and took it upon himself to do the job.

 

Her shirt joined his on the floor and the moment her head came through and she could see him again, her breath caught in her throat.  He was standing there half undressed, his tanned chest broad and strong and heaving slightly with his breathing, all that smooth skin exposed to her view exactly the way god made him.  He was staring at her, his eyes both bright and dark at the same time, that confusing gaze anchored firmly on her chest where her poorly fitted bra was doing little to either provide support or hide her from his view.  It was a struggle not to cover herself, but modesty was a bit pointless now.

"You got a condom?"

"What?"

"A condom."  He pointed to the open front of his jeans and she looked, cheeks flushing hot when she realized she could see the base of his penis.  It wasn't hard yet but dear god it looked thick, what she could see of it.  She sucked in her breath and shook her head to clear it.

"Um, yeah, yeah I have one here somewhere.  I think...he left some."

She left who _he_ was unsaid.  No sense pulling the pall of the Ex over the first moment of freedom and joy she'd had in...eighteen months?  God it had really been that long.  She wasn't surprised, just...disappointed.  She faked a quick smile as she covered the front of her bra with her hands and moved to the dresser to find something to make this all as safe as possible.

The angel wasn't smiling.  That same dark spark of murder and mayhem was shadowing his eyes again, the one she'd seen on him when the Ex had driven up.

Dark and menacing.

Predatory.

A quick rummage through the bottom drawer of the dresser turned up a half crushed box of what she was looking for.  Only one missing.  A pathetic revelation about her sex life...but one that was about to be remedied, she supposed.

The angel's eyes fell to the little box, and then his hands pushed the top of his jeans down.

 

 

There were defined exact moments, Tate realized, when gears shifted and lives changed direction.  She'd always rather thought things happened seamlessly and without much commotion or call for attention, that you just sort of noticed later on down the road that oh yes, you'd taken a turn a few miles back and the view was different now.  If you found yourself lost in an unfamiliar part of town you simply stopped, asked for directions, reprogrammed your GPS and got back headed to where you needed to be.

Or you kept going, because suddenly the unexpected view was so much better than what was behind you.

The angel's hands came to her waist, pulling her hips to his.  She hadn't expected him to kiss her - he didn't strike her as the tender type and kissing was for people who'd known each other for more than a week and three short conversations, but there it was, his lips coming to hers without much hesitation or fanfare.  It was abrupt, scratchy with whiskers and devoid of much in the way of emotion, but the urgent passion was there enough to make her moan against his mouth.  And then he guided her down onto the bed, pushing until she obeyed him, sliding himself in between her legs.

The kiss moved from her mouth to her throat to her breasts where he sucked at her, leaving her bra in place, teeth nipping hard at the stiffening tips tucked inside the thin white cotton.  A groan came from somewhere as hands rough from work eased over skin that hadn't been caressed in far too long.

"Turn over."

"What?"

His hand went to her waist, tugging at her hip.  "Turn."

She did as he instructed, hesitant and slow and once she was on her belly he moved over on top of her, his hands going to her waist again.  Pulling at her, urging her hips up.  "Get up.  Hands and knees, come on."

She followed instructions again, and when he knelt over her back to press his lips briefly to the nape of her neck she realized what he was going to do.  She felt him hook his fingers under the waistband of her yoga pants, peeling them down her legs, taking her underwear with them.

_"Shhhh."_

She wasn't aware of having made any noise, but she bit her lip to silence whatever had escaped.  His hands slid down over her bottom.  Stopped halfway, squeezing, spreading her...and then she felt him nudging into her, a slow inch at a time until his cock had her open enough.  She had no idea when she'd gotten so wet but apparently the job had been taken care of fairly efficiently somewhere along the way.  Maybe when his lips grazed over her nipple and she'd felt that tingle in her belly?  All she'd paid attention to was the seeming connection of the heat of his mouth and the heat in her stomach and how one had shot straight through her from the other.  Either way, there was no resistance when he pushed against her and the heat coming from the blunt head of his cock quickly found its match in the heat radiating from somewhere deep inside.

With a groan he slid into her.  Not far, but enough that she knew he was there.  God he was big, solid and thick and he'd hardened to a stiffness that made her stomach clench up when she felt it going in...she braced herself for the rest of him and realized she was panting and he was cursing.

_Did he curse like that when he was having sex?_

Yep, yeah he did.

_"Fuuuuuck...goddamn, girl."_

His weight was against her back then and his hands reached under her, fingers roughly pulling the cups of her bra down to slide calloused palms over her nipples, her heavy breasts filling his hands as he squeezed them.  There was a frenzied moment of urgent messy thrusting and harsh breathing and then he was completely inside her, solid pelvis hitting soft bottom, breath hitching in his throat when she arched her back under him.

"Geezus...fuck..."

A cool breeze billowed the curtain out over them, the sheer white cotton caressing lightly over her back as he sat up behind her and put his hands back on her hips.  The sound of the Viking running boards through the table saw buzzed through the edge of her awareness, but she didn't care.

There was a dark haired fallen angel with an atrocious vocabulary in her bed, the window was open and letting in a soft caress of wind that cooled her suddenly hot skin, and for the first time that she could remember in _ever_ , she was having something other than awkwardly by-the-book missionary sex on top of the covers with the lights on and her eyes open.

And she was wet, without artificial assistance.

And moaning.  She'd never actually heard herself moan before.

And it felt _good._

Geezus fuck indeed.

 

 

_To be continued..._

 


	14. Day 8, Part 4

 

_I can't believe I'm doing this._

Viletongue, the fallen angel, whatever his name was - dear god she realized suddenly that she had no earthly clue what his name actually was - was thrusting into her from behind with all the gusto of a male who genuinely believed sex was for breaking beds and causing bruises.  But since the bed was frameless and seated directly on the hardwood floor, that only left the marks to be concerned with.

She knew exactly where she was going to have them, too.  But since no one except her gynecologist saw her naked anymore, she wasn't really worried about the pressure marks on her hips where his fingers were holding her securely in place or the probable contusions on the backs of her upper thighs.  Nobody would know they were there, she'd stopped wearing shorts that short soon after the birth of her first child.

He would be the only one to see them...if they did this again.

She was shocked to realize she was already thinking of the next time.

The words coming from his mouth in grunts and breathless groans were harsh, sharp edged, brutal - but with each deep thrust he drove her further forward on the bed, and on each withdrawal he pulled her back.  There was a tickling in her belly, down low where she could feel him inside her, and though instinct told her he would finish quickly and that would be the end of it she still relished the feel of this, for however long it lasted.

The feel of _him_.

Of his hands gripping her hips, his cock buried deep inside her, his curses quiet so that only she could hear them.  The heavy creak of the bed springs under their knees, the soft give of the mattress under her palms.  The crisp, pleasantly clean scent of the sheets when her elbows gave way under the fierce onslaught of his final pushes against her and she found herself face down in them, breathing hard, surprised at how hard her heart was beating and how weak and trembly her thighs felt under the weight they were still supporting.  He was leaning against her now with his head on her back, breath coming in raspy gasps and swallows, hands still gripping her hips...though with less force now that he was finished.

He wasn't cursing now.  There had been a long, deep, half bitten-off bastardization of several words she recognized and a few she didn't, there at the end.  She'd known he was close to orgasm by the way his voice strangled the words, choking on them.  And then he'd thrust hard against her several times in quick succession and she'd felt those strong fingers biting into her hips, and that was when her elbows had given up trying to support them both.

"Sweet Mary mother of fuck.  _Whew."_

With a hiss of discomfort he slipped out of her, falling over onto the bed next to her on his back.  His hands were scrubbing at his face but after a moment he let one fall onto her hip; she had let her knees slide out from under her and lay flat on her belly beside him, wondering what she was supposed to do now.  There was nothing in her memory banks to cover this situation and she felt suddenly uneasy.  The Ex had always gotten up, washed, then come back to fall asleep on his own side of the bed while she got up to check on the kids, retreating into the bathroom herself to wash up after and returning to the heavy snores of a man who had no interest in cuddling or comfort.

Not hers, anyway.

Viletongue seemed in no hurry to either wash up or leave, though.  In fact he seemed to have no intention at all of doing anything other than lying there on his back, eyes closed, one forearm resting across his forehead while the other rubbed lazily down over the back of her hip and onto her buttock.  Up and down, his rough calloused thumb scraping over her smooth skin...strangely soothing she realized with a sleepily mixed feeling of both satisfaction and incompleteness.  It had been good, the long deep strokes of his cock dragging back and forth inside of her, the intimacy of being naked and being touched and actually being _looked at_ filling her with the sense that she'd gotten something she'd been needing.

But not enough.

Something was missing.

Though she knew better than to expect to find it with this stranger when her own husband had never even given it to her.

 

 

"Come here."

"What?"

"Come on."  He patted his belly, but the purpose didn't register and she frowned in confusion at him.

"What do you want me to do?"

"Get on.  On top."  His hands lingered on his lower stomach but his eyes - they lingered on her face and if there was an expression called _I'm not finished with you yet_  it was pulling at the corners of his mouth as he looked at her.  "Ride me."

"Ride y- _oh."_

Embarrassment took the place of the confusion but she pushed it aside, reminding herself that _he_ had instigated this, that _he_ had wanted her, that he was enjoying her company enough to stick around even though he'd obviously filled the condom and had no real reason not to be getting dressed and gone.

No, she didn't need to be feeling self conscious right now, because his eyes were on her and there was the slightest hint of a smile bringing up the edges of his lips and he was rubbing his belly, giving it a pat right below his bellybutton, waiting for her to get up on top of him.

This was scary and new and completely foreign, but that tickly little feeling in her stomach was urging her to do it, telling her that somehow this little bit of obedience would make it all feel better.

 

 

_To be continued..._

 


	15. Day 8, Part 5

 

He was laying there, on his back, in her bed, looking very much out of place but absolutely welcome and wanted.  God, so wanted.  And so very very welcome.  She'd thought it was over, that he would pull on his jeans and pick up his boots and get out as quickly as possible now that he'd wrested the pleasure he wanted out of her body.  That was what men did immediately after one night stands, wasn't it?  But it was the middle of the afternoon and, for all she knew, that changed the rules.

He wasn't moving except for that one hand lazily stroking across his lower stomach, fingertips making the soft dark hair below his bellybutton move in a way that drew her eyes to it.  She'd never been so brazen, never stared at a naked man before in her life - especially not in the bright light of day with the barrier film off the window and the soft filmy curtains flitting gently in the breeze.

Oh god.  The window was open. _The whole time._

Had the Viking heard them having sex?  She remembered being shocked to hear her own moans and not quite as shocked to hear Viletongue's groaned curses, both uttered loudly enough to carry past the windowsill above the bed.  But somewhere across the space between the two houses she could hear hammering, and knew the big blonde was likely on the other side of the property doing his job.

While his partner did _her_.

Her eyes came back to him, to the long, lean, powerfully built length of him stretched out across her bed.  His black hair was tousled and fanning out on the white sheets around his head and she noticed how dark the stubble across his chin and cheeks was, how it matched his sooty black lashes and eyebrows so perfectly, all of it the same exact color as the sparse trail of hair that went down the center of his chest and stomach to his groin.  Soft and dark and a beautiful stark contrast to the light golden skin of his torso.  His arms and face were darker where the sun hit him all day and the tan lines almost made him look like he was still wearing a tee shirt, even though he was undeniably naked.

He was beautiful like nothing she'd ever seen up close before.  And he was staring at her, something vaguely amused flickering in his eyes.

He was _waiting_.  That big hand on his belly was stroking lower as she watched it, moving down over his pubic bone to slide long, strong fingers idly down the shaft of his cock.  It kicked a little, twitching in response to the touch, reawakening as it laid half stiff against his stomach.  She flinched a little when it moved; did penises always do that?  God, she'd been married for years and had two kids but had no idea that willies could move on their own.  Or was that just a trick this particular willy had learned along the way?

"Come on.  _Tater Tot."_

His voice brought her attention back to the situation at hand and she realized she was going to have to do something she'd never done before.  He wanted her to get up on top of him, to do - what the hell was it called anyway?  Cowgirl position? - without the safe comforting protection of lights-out to prevent eye contact and pajamas to hide all the jiggly bits.

She wanted to do it though.  Badly.  Badly enough to suck in a deep breath and put her inhibitions away once again.  Badly enough to resist the urge to yank the sheets out from under him and cover herself to the neck.  Badly enough to just blank her brain and do it.

And so she did.

 

He seemed to know that this was new to her and laid still while she situated herself, tucking his arms up behind his head to watch with a hungry little grin as she straddled his hips and lowered onto him.  There was a breathless gasp from her throat when their skin touched and she hesitated, balancing herself with her hands on his chest, so he reached down and laid his own hands on her hips to guide her the rest of the way.

"You got some fuckin' _curves_ , girl."

His fingers bit into the soft flesh of her waist and she looked down to see his eyes watching her, sweeping slowly over her body like he was drinking in everything he could see.  One big hand slid up her ribcage to cup a breast while those beautiful eyes moved back down to rest brazenly at her crotch.  His cock was pressed against his belly and he reached down to push it up against her, nudging the underside of the shaft into her softly yielding and intensely sensitive folds that opened at his urging, exposing her clitoris to the slick rub of direct contact.

A violent jolt of something electric shot through her and she gasped, eyes flying open in shock.

What the hell was _that??_

"Oh...!"

Before she thought about what she was doing, she slid forward, pushing his cock down flat against his belly again and grinding herself along the thick length of it.  She was wet and their skin slid smoothly, the back and forth motion of her hips bringing the most painfully delicious stab of pleasure straight through the middle of her.  And all at once her awareness left her - the shyness of being naked with a stranger, the embarrassing self doubt of her obvious inexperience, the unsureness of not knowing what was expected of her - replaced by an overwhelming need to chase that feeling, that teasing little tickle that was flaring frighteningly into a blaze of heat that demanded everything she could devote to it.  Her body moved of its own volition and she lost herself completely to it, letting it go without conscious permission to seek what it needed.  Her own fingers had coaxed something vaguely similar to this from those hidden bits between her legs before, but that was nothing compared to this.

This was the power of the surging tide answering the pull of the moon, and she wasn't even about to _try_ to resist it.

 

The fallen angel watched through squinted eyes as she pleasured herself blindly on him.  There was the barest hint of a self satisfied smile playing suggestively at his lips and he lay still, letting her forget he was there, sliding his palms up her chest to play with her breasts.  He knew instinctively that this woman had never been turned loose, never been encouraged or given permission to enjoy herself, never been shown what was possible between consenting adults.  And that made him angry.

He didn't care much for people, in general.  Tolerated them mostly...the multitude of noisy brothers and sisters all born before him had taken his patience early and all he had to offer the majority of humankind was a glare to warn them off and a slew of foul words to scatter them if the glare failed.

But this woman riding him with her sadly pretty face all scrunched up in newfound ecstasy, her lush motherly breasts swaying against his palms and her strong soft thighs anchoring her to his hips - he didn't feel the need to simply tolerate her.  He didn't know if he felt sorry for her or if he actually liked her, but goddamn if she wasn't enjoying the everloving fuck out of what he was giving her.

And that made him feel good.  For the next seven or so minutes she was going to need him more than anything in the world, and for those seven minutes he was going to be the most important thing in her universe.

 _"What's your name?"_ he heard her whisper in that breathlessly urgent little voice women always got when they were just starting to crest that unstoppable wave.  They usually couldn't put words together at that point and the sounds came out more like distress than conversation.  For some reason it didn't surprise him that this one managed to squeak out a question for him.

"Jake," he told her, wondering why he bothered to answer.  A lot of women had fucked him and been fucked by him without ever knowing what his name was, and vice versa.  And that had always been fine by him.  He sat up and raised his knees just enough to pitch her forward against his chest, not breaking her stride but bringing their faces close so he could breathe in the warm panting gusts of exertion from her slightly parted lips.  "My name's Jake."

 

 

_To be continued..._

 


	16. Chapter 16

 

 

"I'm...I'm Tate..."

The ridiculousness of what had just tumbled out of her mouth was momentarily lost to a peaking rush of intense heated pleasure, the first wave that bumped her up to the next and would eventually shove her over the top...but a few seconds later she realized through her lusty haze that the fallen angel was laughing.

"Yeah, I know."

His words confused her at first, then she realized - _of course_ he knew her name, he'd used it not five minutes ago.  Her head swam up through the misty fog and she felt her cheeks go hot.  But it wasn't enough to loosen that tenuous grip on her basest senses and she slid forward on him again, groaning as the thick hard length of him dragged back and forth against the softest bits of her.

A ragged moan met her ears and she felt him harden the rest of the way under her.  That deliciously solid, now fully engorged cock resisted being held down between them, springing up to maintain contact each time she slid back, and now the angel's strong hands were gripping her bottom, squeezing hard and pulling her toward him even harder.  It was all a wonderful symphony of painful pleasures and she crested another wave that took her closer, perilously closer, to the careening edge at the top of it all.

"Jake - "

_"Fuck."_

"Oh god...Jake..."

He wasn't even inside her and yet she'd never felt this joined to a man before.  Of course, the only man she'd been with was the Ex, and he had never let her do...this.  Whatever this was.  Riding on top, being in control, taking pleasure without giving up that most intimate of possessions, using her body for _herself_ instead of for him and being allowed to do so without fear of it being stopped, of that control being put back where it belonged, in a body that wasn't hers and would furiously use her for itself without caring how any of it felt for her.

 _It was amazing_.  And as the angel laid back and took her with him, his arms wrapped around her shoulders and hugged her briefly before he let go and pushed her back up into a sitting position on top of him.

"Finish before I blow."

Somehow this quietly groaned command didn't seem like authority so much as a simple fervent request, and when his thumb went to her clit to urge her into compliance, something deep inside her snapped.

There were no words, just the strangled beginning of a scream she couldn't stifle as she lost all that was left of her self control and rode him hard, her hips thrusting back and forth without either rhythm or grace.

And then that elusive peak blasted her vision with a stunning white light and a ringing in her ears that blanked out the world she resided in, and for those fleeting few seconds of pure sugar drenched bliss she ceased to exist anywhere except in that tiny space between her legs that had suddenly, demandingly, taken over her entire being.

 

 

_To be continued..._

 

 


	17. Chapter 17

 

 

Tate reached out and touched the fallen angel's back; he was sitting on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, leaning forward like he was catching his breath.  His jeans were on the floor between his feet.

Her hand moved tentatively over smooth skin without any hint of severed bone to indicate there had ever been wings there.

 _Jake.  His name was Jake._   And he had taken her again, or they had taken each other, and she had found herself tumbling noisily over the top of that precarious peak yet again once he'd pulled out of her and ducked his head down between her legs.  It had been a shock to feel his mouth on her _there,_ to shiver from the tickle of his hair teasing her inner thighs while his hands pressed down on her hipbones to keep her still, and in the end her tally card had two orgasms more than the Ex had given her in several years of marriage and one shakily screamed effword, which she'd never uttered in front of another human being before.

All in one afternoon.

Jake had nodded approvingly at her loss of control and crass outburst, and now he was tugging those hastily discarded and very worn out jeans up a pair of extremely long legs as he stood and hitched them over his hips.  Tate watched from the messy damp sheets.  From behind he looked like one of those statues in the museum, all sharply defined angles and planes and perfectly formed musculature.  Strong thighs from years of carrying loads of two-by-fours up ladders, powerful arms from endless days of hard work and heavy lifting.  The lines of his ribs showed through his back, but not from skinniness.  He wasn't skinny, not anywhere.

Tate sucked in her breath.  He was beautiful.  She'd never seen a man like him before, not up close, absolutely not naked - unless the statues in the museums counted.

"Pete's gonna fire my ass."

She blinked in confusion.  "Pete?"

He pointed toward the open window.  "Pete."

The connection made itself in her head and her eyebrows shot up in surprise.  "What, the Viking is your boss?"

Jake nodded briefly, sitting back down on the bed to lean over and pick up his boots.  He didn't seem to notice or acknowledge the Viking reference and she watched him in silence, wondering if he would come back again.  She didn't know if she'd been any good, had no way of knowing how many lovers he'd had, if she measured up to any of them or if he'd been underwhelmed by her performance.  But she did know one thing without any shred of doubt.

He'd been something else.  She only had the Ex to compare him to, but the two weren't even in the same stratosphere.

A warm blush hit her cheeks as Jake turned to look at her, reaching out one long arm to run a fingertip down her cheek to her chin before he tossed his boots out the open window and climbed up on the bed.  He batted the filmy curtains aside and stuck his head out.

_"Hey numbnuts."_

A deep rumbly voice echoed back from the open garage next door.  "Yeah?"

_Oh my god he answers to it._

"Turn that shit off, I hate that fucking song."  He started to climb out the window and as soon as he'd jumped down off the ledge Tate could see the Viking - Pete - flashing a wide knowing grin at him.

"Horndog with a side of tater tots eh?"

"Shut up."

The big blonde looked over at her and gave her the same grin with a slightly less lecherous edge.  "Hey Tater Tot."  She waved back, not sure if she should feel embarrassed or elated by the attention.  Jake didn't seem to care that he obviously knew what they'd been up to while he was working, and he didn't seem to care that he'd been left with the workload while his partner, employee, buddy, whatever was getting laid next door.

And Jake was still grousing irritably about the music.  Sugar by Maroon Five, she recognized it.  A completely non offensive tune but obviously not in Viletongue's playlist of favorites.

"I like that song," she offered from the windowsill as he sat down on the edge of the driveway and pulled his boots on.  He squinted up at her, the sun hitting his face and making his hair shine blue.  He shook his head in disgust.

"That's his work beat," the Viking - Pete, she was having a hard time putting the name consistently to that ruggedly handsome face - said with a smirk.  "He hates it but it gets him the big bills."  He held one hand up, rubbing his fingertips together like he was indicating money.  That didn't make sense to Tate, but she didn't question him.  She nodded and ducked her head back inside - she had a lot to do before the Ex brought the kids back home, particularly stripping the bed and throwing all the evidence of her uncharacteristic afternoon of wanton wildness into the washer.  Not that he would ever know, there was no reason for him to ever come into this bedroom again...and now that she thought about it, there was something deliriously delicious about the possibility of leaving those sweaty rumpled sheets exactly as they were and knowing he was just a hallway away from where she'd fucked Jake.

It sent a shiver through her, but not of dread.  Excitement maybe.  Anticipation, definitely.

But absolutely not dread.

 

 

_To be continued..._

 

 

 

 


	18. Chapter 18

 

 

The Ex stared at her, suspicion and a niggling hint of not being pleased with her mood drawing his brows together as he carried a sleeping child past her into the house.  Tate had opened the door with a smile entirely not meant for him and _certainly_ not caused by him.  He glanced around like he thought someone else would be there, then headed for the bathroom on the premise of needing to pee after the car trip.

Tate let him go without a fuss.  She knew he was snooping, that he would go two steps further down the hall than he needed to to get to the bathroom, that his eyes would right about now be sweeping the bedroom through the open door...and that he'd be seeing a rumpled, unmade bed whose pillows were on the floor.

Completely unlike her - past noon and beds unmade.

But there was nothing of Jake there, no evidence that he'd come through the front door, spent a couple of hours bringing that smile to her face, then left through the window.  The Ex could peek all he wanted, there was nothing to see.

_"Goddamn motherfucking cocksucker!!"_

There was plenty to hear though.  The bedroom window was still open, allowing Jake's vile tongue to rip angrily through the house from next door.  The five year old giggled and started to say something but Tate shook her head quickly and the little girl fell silent.

The Ex stomped furiously back into the livingroom and headed for the door.

"You obviously haven't told those idiots to keep the volume down on those filthy mouths of theirs yet."

Tate laughed a little on the inside.  _Only about fifteen times_ she thought to herself as he slammed the door behind him.

 

 

"Hey!"

A SkilSaw was blaring, a hammer was hammering, and a radio was blasting - all three very effectively drowning out the Ex's attempts to draw the attention of the two men who likely knew he was there and just didn't care.  Tate had run down the hall with the kids and stationed herself on the bed at the window, anxious to hear what would no doubt end up being a colorful exchange.  Jake had looked up when she pushed the curtains aside, giving her a covert wink just as the Ex roared through the garage and out onto the deck where they were working.

And then he steadfastly refused to acknowledge the man's presence, hammering nail after nail without stopping despite the rising anger in their visitor's voice.

The Viking did the same with the SkilSaw, right up until the moment the plug was kicked out of the wall and the whining roar fell silent.  "I need to speak to your supervisor, I've got a complaint about the language my kids are hearing from over here."

Pete looked at Jake, confusion coming across his handsome face.  "Supervisor?  Nobody supervises us."  Jake shrugged at him and went back to hammering, already bored with the conversation.  The Ex raised his voice to talk over the noise.

"Who's your crew boss?"

Pete plugged the SkilSaw back in.  "Me."

"Okay, who's your _boss_ boss?"

"That would also be me."

The Ex looked genuinely surprised.  " _You're_ the boss?"

"Yessir.  What can I do for you?"

Surprise turned quickly to a heated sort of indignation that Tate recognized all too well...it brought with it a far too familiar tone that made her feel cold along her spine, but it was worth the nervous discomfort to keep listening.  She knew what his complaint was going to be and she knew the response he was going to get.  "You can stop the trashy cursing for starters, my daughter used the F-word last night while she was brushing her teeth - "

There was an outburst of laughter and Tate shifted on the bed to get a better view - Jake was obviously amused, but he still hadn't stopped hammering.  She turned to stare at her daughter.

"Did you say the F-word to daddy?"

The little girl nodded.

Tate thought about it for a second, about how fulfilling that word had been when she'd said it herself.  It was like a valve opening to let pressure escape.  She nodded her head and went back to watching the situation next door, whispering "Good for you sweetie" as she craned her neck around the window's edge to locate Jake.  He was moving to the far end of the deck, the hammer still in his hand, putting distance between himself and the other two men.

Somehow that seemed like the best option.  She knew he had a temper...and so did the Ex.

"Just keep the foul language to a dull roar, will you?  If I have to call the authorities and file a complaint I - "

_BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM_

Jake's hammer drowned his words out completely.

" - don't appreciate my kids being taught how to talk like dirty criminals - "

_BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM_

"My son can't even say his own name yet but he can take the Lord's name in vain - "

_BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM_

_"Could you stop that please?!"_

Pete's voice boomed across the space between the two houses and Tate knew the good natured Viking was starting to get annoyed with both the waste of his time and the commanding tone of the Ex's voice.  "My boy's on the clock.  You can talk to me if you have a problem."  He stepped up in front of the Ex, closer than strictly necessary, his beautiful face and huge muscled body suddenly way more threatening than Tate remembered them being.

The Ex backed up two steps.

"Just keep it down if you don't mind.  My kids are intelligent, they don't need to be dumbed down into speaking like pirates by work-release criminals."

 _Oh no_...Tate closed her eyes, but that didn't stop her from hearing Jake's surly voice growl _"Fuck you asshole."_

The Ex had turned to leave, but stopped and turned back around.  "Excuse me?"

"I said fuck you."

"Asshole," Pete interjected.

"Oh yeah.  Fuck you _asshole."_

The Ex scowled so hard it made her hands start to shake, a flashback to all the times he'd cowed her down with that same look when she fell short of his expectations.  It was physically painful and she flinched when his voice broke into her memories again.  "I guess you're the one she learned it from then."

"Which one?"

"What?"

"Which one?" Jake repeated impatiently, obviously already several minutes past being finished with this conversation.  "You referring to the kid or the woman?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Tate.  She knows how to say fuck now too - she didn't say it while she was brushing her teeth though."

Pete sniggered but kept his eyes carefully on the Ex.

"You're on a first name basis with my wife now?"

"From what I understand she's not your wife.  Which means you're a dumb son of a bitch on top of the asshole thing."

The next few seconds moved so quickly that Tate didn't fully realize what she was seeing until it was already done.  The Ex took a few steps toward Jake.  Jake threw his hammer down on the deck.  The clanging thud of the heavy iron tool hitting hardwood echoed through her head just a single heartbeat's time before Jake brought up a fist in a vicious uppercut so fast and hard that the Ex spun around, hitting the wall behind him before dropping to his knees.

He had something in his hand.  He'd picked up a tool at some point.

 _Oh my god_ she thought with a stunned sort of relief.  _Jake was defending himself._ She wasn't sure what to do - call the police, climb through the window and see if he was still alive, quietly shut the window and pretend she didn't see a thing - ?

"Momma, that man next door punched daddy."

She looked down at the little girl, blank headed and in shock and clueless as to what to say to her.  And then the Viking, Pete, whoever he was - was at the window smiling in at her daughter, telling her it was okay, that her dad was going to be just fine once he had himself a little timeout for being a bully.  He winked and reached in to boop her nose, then turned to Tate.  "You got some ice you can put in a ziplock for me sweetheart?"

The shock wore off like the flip of a switch and she scrambled down off the bed.  "Yeah, good idea, he's going to have a black eye - "

"Naw," Pete said, glancing behind him at where Jake was sitting on the edge of the deck.  "He needs that black eye for a while.  But Jake can't work with busted knuckles and we're on a timeframe over here."

Tate paused in the doorway till his words sank in.  She was just starting to laugh when she heard Jake's voice, growling _Stay down fucker_ from next door.

 

 

_To be continued..._

 

 

 

 

 

 


	19. Chapter 19

 

Tate waited out a very long afternoon - that stretched into an even longer early evening - until the Ex finally returned from the hospital in an Uber with a discharge sheet, a prescription for painkillers, and, confusingly, no bold story about seeing to it that Jake spent a few days in jail for grievous personal assault.  She didn't want to risk pushing it by asking about the police report she was sure he'd filled out while he was there, but once he'd retrieved his car and driven himself home, she ran across the front yard to the adjoining one and got the phone number off Pete's contractor sign.  She'd never really looked at it before - it had a decidedly ancient looking hammer as the background picture, with lightning strikes flashing all around it.

 _Suits them,_ she thought as she dialed the number.  Jake had certainly made the Ex see some violent flashes of light.

Pete answered on the third ring.

"Golden City Construction," he said, his deep voice booming through the phone and not sounding the least bit concerned about the day's events.  "You got me after hours so if this is a biz thing you gotta either buy me a beer first or be a damn fine lady."

"Pete?"

"Yes ma'am?"

"This is Tate, you know, um - "

"Tater Tot!  Mark one down in the Damn Fine Lady category.  Did dipshit make it home yet?"

"Yeah he did, he's gone now.  Listen, I just wanted to say..."  Say what exactly?  _Thanks for hiring Jake so that this day would come and you could end up driving my ex to the hospital to have his jaw wired?_ The whole thing was bringing a grin to her face that she didn't half feel guilty about.  "Thanks for taking him to the ER.  You didn't have to do that."

"Eh, no worries girl.  Had something to show him anyway."

"What?"

"Nice little video clip I have on my phone.  Has a real nice shot of Jake dropping his hammer and fucknuts picking up a crowbar.  Nice tidy little self defense scenario just in case he decided to try calling the cops.  We had ourselves a bit of guy-to-guy time, I think he understands a few things now."

_Oh my god._

"Can I ask you something?"

"Sure babe."

"Jake."

A short silence fell between them before Pete laughed a little.

"Yeah, that's a question all to itself isn't it?  Jake's a good kid.  Youngest of six, I think by the time he was born his mama was like _Screw this noise I'm done_ and didn't breastfeed him.  I'm of the opinion that's what's wrong with him."

"Have you known him a long time?"

"Since he was about seventeen.  He's been working for me off and on around seven years."

The math ran through her head and she cringed.  "So he's...twenty four?"

"Sounds about right."

Six years younger than her.  When had she become one of _those_ women??

"Will he be at work tomorrow?  You didn't have to lay him off or anything, you know - because of today?"

"Hell no sweetstuff, boy's got a job on my crew for as long as he wants it.  Probably won't see him much once he gets back into school though."

 _"He's a student?"_ She tried to keep the shock out of her voice but there it was, loud and clear and heavily implying that Jake wasn't advanced learning material.  The Viking didn't seem to notice, and if he did he left it alone.

"Yeah, he's studying nuclear physics or something...I forget.  Cosmetology maybe.  What's the one where you make drugs?"

"What?!"

"Not the Walter White Breaking Bad kind, the kind like where you go to WalMart to get your blood pressure meds."

"Oh - pharmacology?"

"Sounds right, yeah."  He laughed, the sound resonating through the phone so deeply Tate had to move it away from her ear.  "Boy's good at chemistry, go figure.  He wants a white coat instead of a hammer holster."

She thought about it for a minute.  Jake was doing something with his life.  Rough-mouthed, terse-tempered, quick-fisted Jake.  The idea of looking at him across a pharmacy counter and asking for a refill on her birth control seemed so freakishly incongruous with everything she knew about him...which admittedly wasn't a lot.  She knew he had the face of a very bad natured angel, the body of a construction god, and the bedroom skills of a porn star in a perpetually cranky mood.

And he'd laid her ex husband out like a lumberjack taking down a pine.

That was really just about it.  And it was pretty much the most exciting set of details she’d ever catalogued on her own.  And now that she was thinking about it, there was definitely a smoldering spark of furious intelligence in his eyes.  "How's he affording med school working on a contracting crew?"

"This is his second job, sweets.  He works at Gunslingers four nights a week and twice on weekends.  He'll be gone before we know it at the rate he's raking it in, so long as he doesn't drop from exhaustion first."

"What's Gunslingers?"

"You know the ladies club on 44 by the airport?  He's the star entertainment.  Boy is popular."

She wasn't familiar with anything on that side of town, had never heard of Gunslingers or ladies clubs or could even begin to guess what  _star entertainment_ might mean...until suddenly a late night commercial she'd seen on television flashed through her head.  It had been for a gentlemen's club...

"He's a stripper?!"

"Exotic dancer.  Or _performer_ if you want to humor him - which, you know, you should if you don't want to get suckerpunched."

Tate felt like her mouth must be doing a fairly good impersonation of a guppy, because she could feel great gulps of air going down her throat but couldn't hear any words coming out.  Jake, the viletongued angel that she'd slept with that morning, the guy that had flipped her over on her stomach and shown her all kinds of new ways to do things she'd only ever done the _right_ way, the _normal_ way, the _proper_ way - the safe and boring way, she realized now with a tinge of regret for all her lost years of fun and excitement - _that guy_ was moonlighting as a stripper at a ladies club out on 44 by the airport, wherever the hell that was, and was working his way through college on a medical degree.  He was working his ass off on multiple jobs to make something of himself.

And what the hell was _she_ doing?  Sitting here in her newly unlocked prison cell, too scared to step outside and see what was going on in the world now that she had access to it.

Pathetic.

Pete was talking, but she'd missed all but the last two words.

"Sorry, what'd you say?"

"I said he'll be out there tomorrow night.  You should go see him.  He's good."

"I...I don't...the kids - "

"I can babysit.  Just let me shower at your place when I'm done at the site.  I'll build you that sandbox I promised your little girl."

"I couldn't - "

"Why not?  You've already seen him in his birthday suit, right?"

"If you were watching us I swear Pete I'll - "

That big booming laugh cut her protest short and nearly made her drop the phone at the same time.  "Just go see him, Tater Tot.  Take some dollar bills, boy's gotta pay for tuition.  And I'll see you after we shut down for the day.  I like two towels and conditioner, but not any of that flowery smelling shit, you got it?"

Odds were good that she was stammering something unintelligible in lieu of a response when Pete hung up, the earthshaking laugh tuned down to a soft chuckle that she wasn't sure boded particularly well.  But the last thing on her mind was that restrictive fear of finding out what was past her front door now that it was standing wide open, everything beyond it beckoning alluringly for her to come on out and learn a few things.  No, all she could focus on for the next ten minutes was setting aside two big towels in the bathroom and sniffing every hair product under the sink for the scent of flowers.

And digging dollar bills out of the kids' piggy banks.

 

 

_To be continued..._

 


	20. Chapter 20

 

The gigantic Viking was at her door at seven sharp, friendly crinkle-eyed smile in place as he pushed past her and headed for the kitchen like he owned the place.  His head was already in the refrigerator by the time Tate caught up to him.

"You got leftovers in here?  I can make myself a sandwich if I have to."

"Um - yeah, I think there's some pork chops from a couple of nights ago, help yourself."

Pete stood up to full height with a big satisfied grin, four Tupperware containers in his hands and a bottle of ketchup hanging out of his mouth.  He dropped it onto the countertop with a thud and made himself at home at the bar, arranging all four containers in front of himself.  "Fork?"

Tate got him one from the dishwasher.  He was already eating with his fingers when she set it on the bar, careful not to get her hands too close.  "Listen, I'm not sure I really ought to go to this...Gunslingers...place.  I wouldn't know what to do or anything and I just feel kind of weird about the whole thing."  Pete looked up at her, squinting while he chewed but not saying anything.  "I don't know if I want to see Jake naked in front of other people.  I mean, that's what he does, right?"

The Viking finished an enormous mouthful and stood up, striding over to the fridge to fetch the milk jug, which he set on the bar in front of his four Tupperwares.  The look on his face as he sat back down to resume eating told Tate everything she needed to know - that he was very attached to those pork chops, and that he didn't plan on leaving.

"The shampoo doesn't smell like flowers does it?  Lavendar I can handle, but none of that jasmine shit, makes me sneeze."

"No, no jasmine.  It's vanilla, I think.  There's some watermelon scented stuff but it's really more bubblebath than shampoo, I mean it's one of those things that can be used for hair and body and bubbles all at once, you can use that if you want."  She was babbling now, nervous and slightly panicky, but Pete seemed oblivious to the flood of words falling from her mouth.  He took a huge bite out of a cold pork chop and held his hand out in a drinking gesture.

"You got soda?  This milk's sorta wonky."

"Oh - yeah, hold on.  Dr Pepper or Sprite?"

"You keep the Sprite for throwups?"

"Yeah."

"Dr Pepper then."

She got it for him and put it in his hand, watching as he popped the can and downed half of it in one swallow.  And then he eyed her for a long moment, a look of wary suspicion in his deepset blue eyes.

"The watermelon stuff, is it in a green bottle shaped like Shrek?"

"A yellow Minion, actually."

"A Minion?!  Fuck yeah I love Minions.  Wish I had about twenty of 'em on my crew so Jake could stop falling off the roof.  That's why I keep him on the ground.  He's good with the carpentry shit but boy's got so much vertigo in his skull it's a wonder he doesn't crawl everywhere."  He took another swallow of Dr Pepper and popped the lid off another Tupperware, surveying the contents for a second before shrugging and making a nondescript gesture toward the bathroom with his fork.  "Put out the watermelon Minion, lets live like kings."

 

 

Tate sat on the edge of the bed staring into the mirror above the dresser.  The face that stared back seemed different somehow, and she knew it was because of the events of the past few days that she didn't recognize herself anymore.  Jake had come into her life and into her bedroom and somehow he hadn't left either one, even though she was alone in here now and he was...wherever he was.  She'd never made the bed after he vacated it and the sheets were still thrashed, the fluffy white comforter still crumpled on the floor on the other side.  If she paid attention she could still catch a faint whiff of his skin and the sundrenched sweat dried on it, the freshly cut sawdust that clung to his dark hair, the oddly alluring mix of cigarettes and Skittles on his breath.

There was another smell there too, twisted into the pristine white sheets.  It was an odd thing, realizing that her own scent was in there somewhere, mixed with his.  She should really wash the bedding and make the bed and get busy sorting what she was going to do now, now that the Ex was likely to do one of two things as soon as he recovered enough to get mad about what happened and why - she felt confident that he would either flip out and punish her for her brash defiance, or he would quietly slip out of her business and focus on minding his own.

If the latter scenario played out, would it continue past the final day of Golden City Construction's work next door?  When Pete and Jake packed up their tools and drove off in that big red truck of theirs and the threat of consequences left with them, would the Ex grow his balls back and try to put her back under his thumb again?  Her exhilarating taste of freedom felt suddenly tragically short lived and the thought made her sad.

A cool early evening breeze blew softly through the open window.

The open window that had been shut for so long she couldn't even remember a time when it wasn't sealed up with layers of paint and a childproof lock and that damned frosted sticker paper that kept her from seeing what was outside.  She heard the shower come on down the hall, smiling when the Viking broke into a loud song whose words she felt were probably better left muffled by the running water.

"Mom, that big man from next door is in our bathroom."

"I know sweetie, he's going to watch you and your brother tonight while I go somewhere.  If you're real good he might build you a sandbox."

The little girl seemed suspicious, but shrugged and turned to go back to her room across the hall.  Tate sighed.  Life was such a weird thing, when you stopped to think about it - and she was doing a lot of thinking these days.

She didn't know where she was going to be in a week.  But she knew where she was going to be tonight.

At Gunslingers, watching Jake dance and enjoying what was left of whatever _this_ was.  Freedom, rebellion, stupidity, temporary insanity?  Why were most of the potential labels describing her current mindset so _negative?_ She struggled to replace them with more positive descriptors, realizing after an unsuccessful few seconds that there was no point.

Whatever it was, she was committed to it.  She'd name it later.  Right now she had an outfit to pick and a purse full of dollar bills to collect on her way out the door and a whole lot of nerve to work up before she did either of those two things.  Simple things.  Shamefully easy things.  Jake could dance in front of strangers and crawl in her bedroom window and break a bully's jaw and earn a degree in medicine and have a goal in life that he was actively working toward...but she couldn't go to her closet and pull out a clean shirt.

_Why am I so damn scared...?_

A text notification popped up on her phone and she picked it up.  Pete was texting her from the bathroom.

**7:27 pm:  Get your ass dressed and out the door because I'm aboutta walk in there in nothin but a Spongebob towel**

She laughed.

**7:28 pm:  Please don't, think of the kids.  I'm going.**

She paused for a second before sending it, then slowly added -

**Thanks.**

 

 

_To be continued..._

 


	21. Chapter 21

 

 

Jake stared out at the audience in the dark smoky room that he'd grown so accustomed to.  So many Friday and Saturday nights spent here, the smell of the smoke machine to the left of the stage, the alcohol and perfume and the skin of too many people jammed into too small of a space hitting him square in the face like they always did.  He'd long overcome his stage fright but some nights it still edged at him a little, that prickle of nervousness when the noise reached his ears...because the crowds were always noisy, from the keening cries of females feigning the vapors to the raucous hooting and, finally, shouting drowned out by floor shaking applause.  He'd gotten used to this.  It was his weekend drug of choice, the adoration that was putting him through school quicker than working for Pete ever could.

As drugs go, it was a much better choice than what he used to get up to.  Not as risky, no track marks, and as far as hangovers went...well, a little after show boozing hadn't killed him yet.  And he never had to do that drinking alone, though tonight he felt like he just might break routine and spend the night in his own bed for once.  He was never much for sentiment but that poor woman had gotten into his feels, and he almost wished he could just stop in at her place on his way home and have another taste of the sweet innocence she seemed so eager to hand over to him.  But he lived on the other side of town, and her ex's kid-visiting schedule was an essential detail he didn't have.

Couldn't be responsible for the girl taking a whipping for his thirsty dick.  He had no doubt that asshole wouldn't give two thoughts to popping her one if he ever suspected she'd fucked him.

Goddamn Tater Tot.  He should never have gone in her house.  But he did, and it hadn't taken much to get him into her bed - though it hadn't taken much to get _her_ into it, either.  What the hell was wrong with the two of them?  She was needy and he was horny and those were adjectives that never went well together, particularly with a douchebag ex husband watching from the sidelines just waiting for an excuse to be the abusive prick everyone knew and hated.

Shit.  If he ever saw her with a black eye he would kill the bastard, and Pete would have to bail him out of jail...again...he'd stayed out of trouble for so long, he wasn't about to risk getting kicked out of school over a woman he didn't have any intention of keeping.

Why her??  He could get sex literally anywhere.  A hundred yowling women and a respectable number of men out front right now and no less than half of them would happily give him a night of whatever perversion he chose and be gone before sunup.  Panties with phone numbers written in them landed on the stage at his feet all the damn time.  He didn't need _that_ one in particular, the one with all the baggage, and the kids, and the hangups and inhibitions she was so anxious to let him take away from her.

Naw, he wouldn't make that mistake again.  He and Pete would finish that job and move on and he'd never see her again, and that was absolutely the best outcome for everyone involved.

But he'd be damned if she hadn't made him feel something.

It had been a long time since that had happened.

 

The opening notes of the music, _his_ music, was starting.  He could barely hear it over the sudden screams of recognition.  His ladies were out there, like always.

He closed his eyes and buckled the heavy construction belt over the top button of his jeans.  Every tool he removed from that belt and dropped onto the stage with a resounding thud was another day of tuition, another day closer to being something other than a strong back willing to work long hours in the sun with sawdust in his eyes and the ringing aftermath of power tools buzzing in his ears.

The spotlight hit the center of the stage and he opened his eyes, filled his lungs with the familiar smell of artificial smoke and a hundred different brands of arousal, and stepped out into it.

 

 

Tate sat nervously at her little table, a nonalcoholic drink in front of her, purse clutched in her hands in her lap.  She didn't know what she was supposed to expect or how she was meant to react to whatever she was going to see here tonight, and the sad truth of it was that she was feeling a little bit sick.  The room was dark and smoky despite the No Smoking signs on the walls, but the worst of it was the people.

The place was packed.  Mostly women, some men, all noisy and loud.  She thought about leaving, reminding herself as she started to stand that she was here for a reason.  Maybe not a good reason, but a valid one at any rate.  She was learning how to live, and dammit if it wasn't exhilarating in a stomach twisting sort of way.

She had Jake to thank for it all, the living and the learning and the unsettled jolt that seemed to be shocking her nervous system constantly ever since she'd stolen her first peek at him, watching from her half covered bedroom window as he worked in a quietly graceful sort of oblivion.  He'd never known she was watching him.  Or had he?  It seemed just the sort of thing Jake would do, ignoring her presence and pretending he didn't see her there, waiting for him to come completely into view so she could set a face to the fantasy that was brewing in her suppressed imagination.

He had been far more than she'd expected.

Far far more.

It wasn't even that he was good looking, although she couldn't deny that he definitely was.  She'd felt that right down to her panties the first time she saw him in his sweaty, dirty, sawdust covered entirety.  No, it seemed more like he was an exit strategy, a way to make something final, something she could look to as a turning point.  He, far more so than Pete or anyone else she knew, had seemed like a good candidate for the final step of her half-assed rebellion before she broke completely free.

He was the last nail in the coffin she intended to bury her past in.

His touch had done more than just finalize everything for her, though.  It had awakened something...and not just in her body.

She felt _alive_ for the first time in her life.

 

She looked up just as he stepped into the bright white shaft of light in the center of the stage and sucked in her breath.

 

 

_To be continued..._


End file.
